This is a good one

mickeyboa · 04-06-2005, 07:29 PM

I have got a supposed directory that even root cannot delete, see below:

drwxrwxr-x 2 mickey mickey 4096 Jan 14 14:15 ???Eb????o%?0??}?? w???M??n??????uz???@?,A????3???????eI?B?OOf;s?{E???X?U <?l?????@59?????

[root@mickeyboy mickey]# cd ???Eb????o%?0??}?? w???M??n??????uz???@?,A????3???????eI?B?OOf;s?{E???X?U <?l?????@59?????
bash: cd: ???Eb????o%?0??}??: No such file or directory
bash: ?l?????@59?????: No such file or directory

It's driving me nuts , sitting there on my user home directory and no matter what
command i use to remove it I can't remove it.
And how it got there was a accident , it isn't affecting anything.
Please help before I go over the deep end.
If I don't get rid of it pretty soon I'm going back to $Windows.

Jim

macemoneta · 04-06-2005, 07:33 PM

Some of that should be escaped in shell, but isn't being on the command you issued. Try:

rm -rf \?<tab>

to use autocompletion.

mickeyboa · 04-06-2005, 08:56 PM

no, rm -rf \?<tab> didn't work.
But Thanks

Jim

homey · 04-06-2005, 10:20 PM

Quote:

If I don't get rid of it pretty soon I'm going back to $Windows.

That's pretty lame.

Anyway, as root user ( su - ) I created the said directory and removed it like this......

Code:

# mkdir "???Eb????o%?0??}?? w???M??n??????uz???@?,A????3???????eI?B?OOf;s?{E???X?U <?l?????@59?????"

# ls
Desktop
???Eb????o%?0??}?? w???M??n??????uz???@?,A????3???????eI?B?OOf;s?{E???X?U <?l?????@59?????

Then, I used the command:  rm -rf ???  and pressed the tab key to complete the directory name. It came out looking like this....
# rm -rf \?\?\?Eb\?\?\?\?o%\?0\?\?\}\?\?\ w\?\?\?M\?\?n\?\?\?\?\?\?uz\?\?\?\@\?\,A\?\?\?\?3\?\?\?\?\?\?\?eI\?B\?OOf\;s\?\{E\?\?\?X\?U\ \<\?l\?\?\?\?\?\@59\?\?\?\?\?/

Now the ls comfirms that it is gone.
# ls
Desktop
#

mickeyboa · 04-07-2005, 05:52 AM

And what's really wierd is that if you look at the directory with Super User file manager it shows that Root doesn't even have permission to read it.
It has a lock in front of it .
Even after you have issued the command and put the first ? and then <tab> it won't even list out the complete directory name, like ? isn't
the first character of the directory name , which inicates that it is..

Jim

homey · 04-07-2005, 08:14 AM

Maybe you will have some luck using find .
For example, I change to the user directory and run this command to see how old the directory is.
In this case -mtime -1 is looking for directories that are less than one day old.

Code:

# find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -mtime -1 -exec ls -d {} \;
.
./test2
./test
./test1

Once I know how old the directory is, I can use find again to remove it.....

Code:

# find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -mtime -1 -exec rm -rf {} \;

Then I run the first find to verify that the new directories are gone.
# find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -mtime -1 -exec ls -d {} \;
.
#

mickeyboa · 04-07-2005, 05:06 PM

I ran your command as you suggested and below is what I got
Thanks for trying.

Jim

[root@mickeyboy mickey]# find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -mtime -1 -exec ls -d {} \;
.
[root@mickeyboy mickey]# find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -mtime -1 -exec rm -rf {} \;
rm: cannot remove `.' or `..'
[root@mickeyboy mickey]# find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -mtime -1 -exec ls -d {} \;
.
[root@mickeyboy mickey]# find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -mtime -1 -exec rm -rf {} \;
rm: cannot remove `.' or `..'
[root@mickeyboy mickey]# find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -mtime -1 -exec ls -d {} \;
.
[root@mickeyboy mickey]# ls
???Eb????o%?0??}?? w???M??n??????uz???@?,A????3???????eI?B?OOf;s?{E???X?U <?l?????@59?????

mjmwired · 04-07-2005, 05:19 PM

I'm not sure why this hasn't been suggested, but usually when I find a directory like that I have some sort of file system corruption. Login as root (preferably under single user mode or from a boot disk) and do a thorough scan with 'fsck' ('man fsck' for help).

(I updated this considering macemoneta's comments)

macemoneta · 04-07-2005, 06:09 PM

Under Fedora Core, you would want init level 1 (single user, no services started). Init level 3 is defined in Fedora as multi-user mode, all services started, without X. Running fsck in that mode will cause file system corruption, if you don't already have it. Be careful with init levels; different distributions define them differently.

mjmwired · 04-07-2005, 09:24 PM

Not that I'm recommending, but just thought I would point out that I've done full fsck scans on runlevel 3 with multiple services and have never had file corruption. But I guess the best thing is to do whatever the instructions say.

macemoneta · 04-07-2005, 09:41 PM

The problem is that fsck is directly modifying on-disk data, while the kernel filesystem has a different view. In single-user mode, only root is running, and root is only executing fsck, so the two views can't get out of sync. In multi-user mode, various applications are writing (logs, for example), so fsck updates a data structure, then the kernel flushes buffers with a sync, and now there's a fine mess. Timing, and which data structures are being updated, matter of course so there's no guarantee that there will be damage; it's just a very unsafe situation.

mickeyboa · 04-08-2005, 06:22 AM

Well guys , we will have to carry on another day with this little project, I just crashed my Linux box
because of the improper use of FSCK. Another day.
Read Post "I crashed my FC3 PC, need help with Knoppix"
Thanks for your help.
Jim